The US duo of Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler sent Europe a warning shot ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, beating Europe’s Rory McIlroy and Henrik Stenson, by the finest of margins in the ‘Rider Cup’ challenge.

The golf superstars went head-to-head at the Saadiyat Beach Golf Club, combining Texas scramble golf and revolutionary GolfBoards in a race to complete the hole first.

Ahead of the tournament which starts on Thursday, Spieth said he was excited about the first round pairing with McIlroy and Fowler.

“I’m very excited about the pairing, yeah. I figured that we’d all be split up, so yesterday I was on the course when I found out and I was very excited,” said Spieth.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity for us three. We very rarely get this pairing and very rarely will going forward. So, we will take advantage and try and really feed off of each other.

“We all want to beat each other pretty bad, so that should help us out within our group.”

The European Tour event has attracted a quality field once again, with Spieth leading a list of four players in the field who are ranked inside the top-six of the world. McIlroy is world number three, Henrik Stenson is number five and Fowler number six.